5 Years of Metanoia

As we mark five years of conducting sustainability audits and advisory work with leading schools across Asia and the UAE, we want to take a moment to recognize and celebrate these schools for their commitment to a sustainable future.

Schools are microcosms of the city, offering a unique opportunity to experiment with sustainable solutions on a smaller, more manageable scale. Our belief has always been that lessons learned in schools can be scaled to the wider community—schools as living laboratories.

But sustainability remains a complex challenge, even at the scale of a school. It's still a matter of resource allocation, human behavior, education and capacity-building, and a willingness to prioritize long-term benefits over short-term gains. But perhaps the biggest challenge is this: that schools are very effective at what they were designed to do - replicating the status quo; whereas at this moment in our history we need them to be enablers of social and environmental transformation.

That’s not to say we haven’t learned a thing or two. Over the coming months we’ll share some reflections. And one question still drives us: how do we unlock the "metanoia"— the change of heart and mind that leads to lasting behavioural change?

We are proud to have partnered with school leaders, educators, and students who have been willing to take the rigorous - but often uncomfortable - deep dive that our audit entails. Our gratitude to everyone who has been part of this journey so far. Here’s to many more years of collaboration and transformation!